Devil Survivor 2: Off the Record
by evenfall
Summary: After subduing Kagutsuchi and receiving the ability to force his own will onto the world, Demifiend hesitated. Thus, though he received a world much like his own, with the ability to live a normal life, the change was far from ideal. Thus, as Hibiki Kuze, the demon once known as Naoki Kashima must triumph over the will of an entire world once more, and stop a seven-day crisis.
1. Chapter 1

It was hot. It was really, really hot. I didn't really know at what point in the past hour it had gotten so hot, but the only thing that mattered was how I was suffering because of it.

Ironically enough, I'd actually slept rather well the past few days in preparation for today. Now, it seemed, the Sandman had come to collect interest. My eyes had crusted over, my hoodie was soaked with sweat, and my mouth swore up and down that it hadn't tasted moisture in days. It was the worst nap in class I had ever taken in my life.

Damn, it was hot.

I picked myself up much in the same way a disemboweled man would, feeling every second of inactivity my limbs had experienced all at once. My neck screamed at me in protest, and I forcefully returned the thing to its proper, centered place on my body, bearing through the pain. All the while, the irritatingly cheery voices of the others around me roused me back into reality.

They were cheerful because today marked the end of the entrance exams. Regardless of whether or not they did well, or were just glad to be done with them, they were happy. I understood them, really, as I too thought I did pretty well on the exams. Indeed, I understood their cheerfulness, but right now, at this particular moment, I couldn't share in their revelry. Because nothing is more annoying than a ton of noises waking you up.

I had to suppress my grimace as I looked around the room. Small groups of two or three were interspersed through the empty-looking classroom, laughing and chattering. The board still informed me of the name of our test examiner and the time we were allowed to leave, which was a full ten minutes earlier than the clock above it read. And, as expected, baleful rays of light crawled through the gaps in the window blinds, burning my skin wherever they touched. Well, no longer.

I got up very slowly, stuffing my pencil in my hoodie pocket and angling myself towards the door. However, no sooner did I stand up did I hear the squeak of sneakers against the linoleum floor of hallway, becoming louder by the second. The rhythm of the footsteps, to be frank, gave it away. They exhibited a flavor of never-changing exuberance that I could only pick out after years of practice. Thus, by the time my best friend rounded the corner, I already had his name on my lips and a frown to match.

"Daichi," I greeted, already exhausted from his appearance. He had a smile on that said "I know what I did, but I don't care" and had an outfit to match. He really didn't even try to practice subtlety. Only a fop like him could wear a scarf and long pants on a day like this. I only had my hoodie on because they had turned on the air condition before I went to sleep. Daichi Shijima, on the other hand, looked like he was fully dressed for the winter.

"Hey, dude! Sorry you had to wait for me. I had to talk to a few teachers after I left my exam room." He gave me the Daichi Excuse Gesture #4, scratching the back of his neck. The bastard wasn't sorry at all, and he knew I knew. Well, if that's how he was going to have it...

"No worries," I replied with a smile that didn't match my eyes. "I'd been taking a nap for a while, anyways." Daichi's eyes hardened and narrowed. _Gotcha._

"Man, why'd you get the smart genes? I only got the stupid ones and the" he gave a fake cough, " _embarrassingly earnest_ ones. Or that's what girls tell me, anyway." He glared lightly at me again, referring to the latest of his failed experiences with women. In this unfortunate incident, a girl I had played wingman for dumped on him the above quotation before proceeding to try and hit on me. Needless to say, he hadn't quite forgiven me for it.

I shrugged. "Ask my parents." I stopped there due to the sound of more footsteps. They were fast, orderly, and scuffed the floor with every movement. Telltale signs of a teacher, and not good ears for the conversations between Daichi and I. This one, incidentally, had business with him.

"Shijima? Daichi Shijima?" With the classic cluelessness of a teacher, he failed to notice poor Daichi hanging out directly in the doorway. A small wave seemed to be enough to get his attention, however. "Oh, there you are. You forgot your things." The middle-aged man pulled out Daichi's blue cell phone and what I presumed to be his exam slip. I subconsciously face-palmed.

"Oh, shoot! I left those? Thank you very much, sir!" Daichi was quick to show the proper deference to a teacher.

"You might find the going tough enough without leaving your things behind, Mister Shijima," the man clipped off while looking pointedly at Daichi's exam slip. The boy was left looking devastated as the teacher walked off.

After I made sure the teacher was gone, I patted Daichi on the back. "Dang, dude. That was pretty harsh. Sorry." Just as Daichi had shown his complete willingness to arrive late on me, I was not, in fact, sorry.

"Hey, some score is better than none, right?" He held up his slip of paper weakly, before jumping back up, eyes wide in realization. "That's right! I wanted to show you something! Here, hand over your phone." He put out his hand in expectance, and I hugged my cell closer to my body. Teenaged boy asks if you want to see something? I'm wary. He needs your phone to do it? I'd rather trust a bear to cut my hair.

Daichi looked at me as if he were deeply injured by my hesitance, and gestured again with his hand. "Come on, don't be like that, man. It's only your phone."

"I'm not giving you my phone." Daichi looked like a puppy, and I wormed away from him some more. He followed me.

"Please?" He looked like a crying puppy who had just been kicked.

"No."

"It's only your phone." Like a kicked, crying puppy missing a leg.

"Not a chance."

"Just-" Now the puppy was crawling around.

"No!"

"- _your phone_ ," he whispered.

"God damn it." I cursed him, and whatever force that allowed him to be born among the thousands of other sperm cells.

I reluctantly handed him my phone, which he happily took. Before long, my paranoid instincts rose up again. I was about to demand it back when Daichi returned the phone to me, screen open, just as quickly as he had taken it.

"See, look at that! Amazing, huh?" The phone displayed a website with the word "Nicaea" printed on it in blocky lettering. The only thing amazing about it thus far was how he got it to load so quickly on a flip phone.

"Wow, Daichi. You figured out how to navigate the Internet. Now you can stop asking me stupid questions about homework." I moved to close the phone, but Daichi shot me a look.

"Not so fast, pal. I just thought I'd wow you with a bit of presentation before moving on to the meat of the event." He took a step back and postured his hands like he was shooting rainbows from them. "'Nye-kayah'!"

I gave him a stare that I hoped conveyed my disappointment. "'Nye-kayah'? Are you serious? I've seen toddlers with better phonetics."

"Come on, give me a break. I just failed my entrance exams." I wouldn't be forgetting about this any time soon. "Anyways, this is that 'images of death' website that's been going around the school recently. Apparently, if you sign up for it, you get to see pictures of your friends dying!" He sounded excited.

"Yeah, and what else do you need? Credit card number? Birth certificate?" This had to be the silliest thing I'd seen catch on in the past few months.

"No, seriously, it's cool! Remember that guy who died in the car accident last week? Well, apparently, his friend signed up for this website and saw it happen!"

"That sounds way creepier than it does cool. And if that actually were true, all it does is make the friend look like a murder suspect. Come on, Daichi, the disembodied voice in the band room was more believable than this."

Daichi crossed his arms. "Look, just put your name in, and if it's a bust, then I'll treat you to lunch sometime. Okay?"

I sighed. "Okay, but if I get some mysterious fees billed to my house, you know what else you're treating me to." Daichi gave me a noncommittal shrug, and I scrolled over to the Register button on the website.

Surely enough, it gave me two boxes and prompted my first and last name. With a small bit of hesitance still controlling my fingers, I typed in "Hibiki Kuze" and clicked enter. After the screen reacted, two animated figures walked from both sides of the screen to the center, prompting me again to make a choice. Both were remarkably detailed in spite of the phone's low resolution, but were still decidedly animated. The male was sharply dressed, and had all the gait and attitude of a wise butler. The female filled in a bunny suit rather well, complete with ears, tights and boots. Both had the purple and black motif going on. I looked to Daichi.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Which one should I choose?" He looked to the screen and back to me. As soon as our eyes locked, nothing more could be said. We had an unspoken connection as two high school boys, now men, whom had grown up together. It was something that no amount of arguments or disagreements could ever break. So in that single stare, I felt as if I had known the answer my whole life. "Right. Of course," I answered simply, before clicking on the female "Tico".

I immediately regretted my decision.

"Um, like, welcome to Nicaea, home to your instant streams for images of death! I'm your guide, Tico-Tico!" Her voice, in the span of five seconds, had made me regret my entire existence if this was what it led to. It was like the military had spent millions of dollars engineering a method to cull the population of humanity just from audial-influenced suicide. I'm relatively certain that if I hadn't turned the volume down on my phone, the windows to the classroom would've been broken and ambulances would've had to be called. I looked to Daichi.

"Look at what you've done," I accused.

"What I've done?" Daichi warded off the negative stigma I was shooting him with his hands. "You pressed the button, man! It's not my fault." In the background, Tico-Tico kept talking.

"On this website, the friends you're tied to by fate... like, not just the people you meet, but your super-duper best friends who you know rilly rilly well... We'll show you ahead of time how they die in some ree-ally nasty detail! I'll keep you in the loop for when we upload new videos, so don't lose your phone! Have a nice _wheeee_!" With that, the website went back to the main menu and now displayed a 3x3 grid that I didn't bother looking at.

" _Rilly_ amazing, Daichi," I deadpanned, before slipping the phone into my pocket.

"Okay, look, it's a bit of an investment, but it only means we haven't done anything dangerous yet! Come on, they always talk about how they want school to be the safest place possible, right? So it only makes sense that we couldn't die here! So..." I knew that look. The look that meant Daichi was about to suggest we go do something I wouldn't ever want to actually do. My brain registered it happening before my mouth could react. It was like a car accident happening in slow motion. His lips moved, and I was powerless to stop it.

"You don't have any afternoon exams, do you?" His lips turned up into a devious curve, and my eyes flicked to the clock. 12:17. Damn, if I had afternoon exams, I'd be two minutes too late for it. Daichi was staring at me now, and he was gearing up for another pass. Think, damn it, think!

...

Aha!

"Heh, my mom actually told me this morning to get home early. I have to help her do a few things around the house. You know how it goes." Flawless. Daichi lived on the other side of the city, and he wouldn't want to go anywhere without me. He didn't have my mom's phone number, and his mom was out for work, so by the time he figured out my clever ruse, it'd be too late for him to do a damn thing about it. Truly, this was my true intelligence shining. So why was it that he was still smiling?

"Funny you'd say that, Hibiki, because my mom gave me a very interesting piece of information a few nights ago." A bead of sweat broke out on my forehead, and I hoped very dearly that it was from the heat. "Apparently, your mom called mine to let her _dear friend_ know that she would be out of town for a few weeks with her husband." I hate friendships. And everything else. "Isn't that just so incredibly interesting? Hi-bi-ki Ku-ze?"

"You sadist," I muttered. Daichi responded with that irritating smile of his.

"Anyhow, how's about we go to this new store in Shibuya? Huh, _pal_?" He put his arm around me and began leading me outside, forcing my stiff limbs along. I think I left skid marks in the floor as he pushed me through the doorway.

"Of course, _best buddy of mine_ ," I spoke with gritted teeth and a tight smile.

God, I hated shopping.

* * *

"You shop like a girl, Daichi."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I think you know exactly what I mean, and it's in my hands."

"Oh, those? Those, my dear friend, are for the ladies. Just look at this shirt! Total chick magnet."

"I don't know what world you're living in, but if you keep buying as much as those ladies, you'll need to get a job to start paying for it." I don't know how long it had been, just wasting the day away, grousing about shopping and carrying Daichi's things for him. And did this guy ever buy a ton.

"Yeah, but I do have a driver's license, now." He slid the small slip of plastic out of his pocket to show me with a smug look on his face before sliding it back in like he just flashed me. "It shouldn't be so hard to keep a job now. Although, getting a job does require me to pass the entrance exams..." His voice turned mildly severe towards the end.

"Hey, cheer up, man. The burger place by my house'll probably take you." I snickered, covering my mouth with my hand as Daichi whirled on me. After finding nothing of value in my expression, he turned back and pressed the button on the crosswalk.

"But seriously, though, I don't think I could do so well in a wage job if I didn't enjoy what I was doing."

"Money's money, Daichi." I rolled my eyes.

"I know that, but it's still the principle of the thing, y'know! I don't want to be Daichi the Register Jockey. And it's easy for you to say. You're the guy who aces literally everything. Sports, grades, you name it!" The light turned red, and we walked across the street. The bags were getting heavy, now.

"And most important of all to ace: my friends' hearts." I winked and shot him with a finger pistol.

"Ha ha. But really, I don't know how you do it."

"I don't know how you don't. I just do the work and exercise occasionally. Maybe you're just lazy."

"Maybe you're right. I do play video games an awful lot..." Daichi put a hand to his chin as if he were seriously considering that for his reason of failure.

"But then again, I do play just as much as you, most of the time," I added offhandedly. Daichi gave out an exasperated sigh.

"Come on, man, can't you just let a guy dream?"

"Nope," I said seriously. "I had to shoot you down before you got any ideas of us being equal."

We both grinned, and the conversation continued something like that until we arrived at the subway station. The platform was crowded and cramped like usual.

"...and there was this one guy who kept going on and on about our mid lane in Russian, and-" Daichi cut off for a moment, interrupting the story. He stared off over the heads of all the other people and squinted. I waited a few seconds before getting his attention again.

"Hey, Creepy. What are you staring at?" I followed his gaze until I caught a glimpse of a very... _healthy_ girl with a brown bob cut, dressed in our school uniform.

Daichi gulped and bumped my shoulder. "Is that who I think it is?" I raised an eyebrow and made a point of brushing off the spot he touched before racking my brain for a response.

"A walking endorsement for the benefits of good nutrition?"

Daichi gave me a really creepy smile at that and nodded. "You got that one right, but look again. That's Io Nitta. You know, from Class C?" It rung a bell, that was for sure.

"That's right. Number one on Daichi's List of Perfection."

"Right again, my best friend and confidant. Oh, sweet Io. She's cute, gentle, innocent..." And probably not attracted to the aggressive weirdness I'm seeing now.

"Okay, Daichi? Deep breaths. Taper it down. What if Io saw you like this?" She'd probably wish she could unsee it.

"What? Don't be paranoid, dude. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah! Sweet, modest..." He started counting on his fingers, blissfully ignorant of the approaching presence behind him.

"U-um, excuse me," a sweet and modest voice came from behind Daichi. I snorted in an attempt to stifle myself.

"Yeah, whaddaya want? Can't you see I'm-" Daichi responded like a true chump, berating the cute, gentle and innocent presence behind him for interrupting him about... "I-Io?! Ha... haha... What a coincidence!" Oh, what a delightful hole Daichi's dug himself this time.

"Oh, were you two talking about something? I-I'm sorry, I just noticed you two were wearing my school's uniforms and..." Truly, Io, you were as sweet as my sources had suggested. But the call for true evil was far too strong.

I showed a toothy smile and did my worst. "Well, actually, we were- mmph!" I gave a muffled yell in surprise as Daichi grabbed a sock from his bag and stuffed in in my mouth, knocking me back into a bench. He hovered over me by placing a hand on the wall above me and crossed his legs over one another real cool-like. Io, meanwhile, after seeing all that, put a hand over her mouth in adorable shock.

"-talking about nothing! Haha! Nothing at all!" Daichi covered his tracks, and I decided it best to see how he handled the situation. For the moment, though, I had gained a free pair of socks. "S-So, Io... what brings you here?" Daichi's voice had miraculously dropped an octave.

"Well, you guys came from the exams, right? I got here a little late..." She looked to the ground sheepishly. A little late? Morning exams started at 8:00!

"Oh, those? Pshh. Easy peasy." Daichi flicked his wrist up and down and looked to me only for a moment, as if daring me to contradict him. "Afternoon exams started a while ago, but evening exams should be okay to make by six. Everyone should still be there, and you'd be okay to get practice questions too." He flipped the hair out of his eyes and waited for Io to respond. I started for her.

"Wow, Daichi, you actually _were_ paying attention!" I couldn't help it.

Daichi turned and stared at me like I had just farted. "Hey, numbskull-" he was about to say, when both ours and Io's phone's buzzed with the sound of receiving an email. "Woah. At the same time, too," Daichi commented, before turning his attention to Io again. "Must be on the same wavelength, huh?"

I interrupted his attempts at wooing Io again. "Hey, Daichi, this is a video. That's gonna rack up my cell phone data real quick, man. I'm regretting signing up for Nicaea now."

"Nicaea? Hmm..." he opened the email, and his face went a little bit pale. I pocketed my phone.

"What... is this? Creepy..." Io sounded irrationally distraught for just a video. I got up to sneak a peek.

"Hey, Hibiki? That's you, isn't it?" Daichi mumbled with a slight quiver in his voice. Oh, so it's one of those death videos, huh? Now I was morbidly curious. I gestured for him to hand me the phone, and I restarted the video from the beginning.

The first thing I noted, again, was how good it looked in spite of the mildly cartoony style it was presented in. The second thing I marveled at was how it was in the exact location the three of us were in, right now. And the depictions of us covered and crushed by rubble were real top notch. The runaway train thing was a little contrived, though. The only thing that could cause that would be if it didn't slow down properly around a curve, or if someone sabotaged the line. Maybe if the conductor miraculously died, but that was even less likely. I think they locked the doors on those things.

"Pretty slick, huh?" Daichi sounded pretty impressed by the whole thing, and, to be frank, so was I.

"Yeah. You win, Daichi, no free food. But the way they knew where we were was pretty creepy, though," I commented. I'd probably have to look this up online when I got home. Looking at my splattered brains on the concrete was a surreal, and slightly unpleasant experience.

"I-I think you're in this too, Daichi," Io spoke up. Under any other circumstance, Daichi probably would have said that was creepy.

"Oh, you know my name, Io?" he spoke up dreamily. I suppressed a shiver and a cringe, and settled for rolling my eyes. The digital jingling of the bells rang across the subway platform, and the sound of an engine drew closer. "Oh, the train's here." Then, all hell broke loose.

The ground started rumbling, and I braced against the bench. Lights started flickering, and everyone around me fell or stumbled slightly at the shaking. It felt like a fifty pound weight had sunken to my gut and refused to leave. Io had fallen in a rather convenient way across my lap, but she quickly recovered and stood back up, a slight blush across her face.

"What the hell? Was that an earthquake?" Daichi half-questioned, half-shouted over the sound of everyone else panicking. I was going to respond, but then I saw something that made my voice die in my throat.

A big, runaway train.

I could have said a multitude of things. "Run", maybe. Or a prayer to God. But as I looked to the front of the train hurtling towards me, a bloody splatter across one of the windows and the mutilated body of a conductor inside, I only had one response.

"You've got to be kidding me." The last thing I saw in my reflection was shaggy, black hair and yellow eyes staring back in my place.

* * *

I awoke in purgatory. A big, black void where no light could have possibly existed, but where I could see perfectly well. There wasn't a scratch on me, and I don't recall going to sleep, however, so I can't really say I woke up. I couldn't say where I was, either. There were a bunch of things I didn't understand.

Then, Tico-Tico appeared in front of me, in the flesh, and I confirmed one of my facts.

"Ah, I see. This isn't purgatory. This is Hell." I started to repent for my sins.

"Aww, don't be like that! You're not dead, silly! Well, not yet, anyways!"

"Are you sure? That train was coming pretty fast."

"Well, yeah, but a computer's waaaay faster, right? So all you gotta do is say you wanna live, and the Demon Summoning App'll do all the work for you!" What.

"...you serious?"

"Uh-huh!" Tico2 smiled irritatingly and nodded so fast I thought her head would shake off.

"What's the catch?" This sounded like a deal with the devil if there ever were one. And I had done more than one of those. Wait...

"No catch! Just say you want to live, and you're good to go, Hibi!"

"Don't call me that," I said quickly. That's all, huh? Well, in that case. "I want to live."

"Sweet! Sorry, by the way! Just had to check for legal reasons. Okay then! Have a nice life!" She smiled again, and she disappeared from view inexplicably. Then, the world began to shrink. How I knew that, I didn't know, because everything was black. But everything just got farther and farther away, until I could barely hear a small voice cry out.

"Hey! Wait for me!"

And then there was pain. I felt a dull pain on my head. The black void had turned into my closed eyelids, and I felt out of breath. I was on the ground, pebbles all around me. I touched at my forehead and gradually picked myself up, and I smelt scorched metal all around me. A bit of liquid dripped into my lips while I was gasping for air, and a single taste confirmed it: I was bleeding.

"H-hey, are you okay?" a small voice said next to my ear, prompting me to open my eyes. The darkness of the subway, somehow, could not fool them. My mind was a bit rattled before, but the crashed train and destruction around me confirmed my situation pretty easily. The dead bodies were a good indicator as well. And although my brain registered it was wrong, my stomach didn't respond. It was like I had seen scenes like this before.

The last thing to catch my immediate attention was the tiny lady with wings floating next to my ear, her height no longer than my forearm. She wore a navy blue leotard with stockings and gloves to match, as well as red hair conveniently arranged into a pixie cut. She had her hands together and her face scrunched in worry, and I felt my heart lurch. My mouth spoke before my mind caught up.

"P-pixie?" How I knew that, I wasn't sure, but the name felt just right on my tongue. Apparently it was alright on her ears, too, because her adorable little face perked up in excitement, and she threw herself onto my face.

"Naoki! You remembered me!" she squealed, and I scrunched up my face in pain and confusion. Naoki? The name was unfamiliar, but like her name, it felt... right, somehow. What the hell was going on here?

Apparently Pixie noticed my discomfort, and said: "Oh, I'm so sorry! I forgot you got hit by a train! I'll fix you up real quick, okay?" Her voice was not unlike the female Tico's, but it was more reserved, and it set my emotions less towards the side of annoyance and more towards acceptance and safety. Additionally, as soon as she said so, a warm feeling spread across my body, and the word **Prayer** resounded through my head like a heavenly narration. I knew exactly what she was doing, and I felt like I could do it too. Like I was suddenly healed in more ways than just my head wound. That, however, only made me more confused.

"Thanks, Pixie, but-" I fell to one knee as a headache asserted itself, but I ground out the words. "Daichi and Io... they're..." I gestured around where I thought they were, and Pixie followed my gaze.

"Got it!" she said cheerfully. "You can leave it to me!" And she flew off to heal the both of them. My head still pounded with pain, despite being healed, and my brain flooded with confusing bits of information that made no sense. Demons, ghosts, Amala... a thousand different terms that had no definition but all the meaning. I couldn't handle it. I needed to deal with this later, because my friends needed me.

Daichi gradually regained consciousness and looked to me, with Pixie behind him healing Io. "What... did anyone get the number of the plate that hit- _what the hell is that_?!" he said groggily, before jumping and sprinting to my location. A stocky, red creature appeared in a flash of digitized blue and looked around, not blinking an eye at the carnage. Not that I could see any eyes to speak of. It scratched at itself lazily before settling its gaze on us.

"Phew! Human world! Wow, I actually thought that train would be heavier. Anyways, I'm Obariyon, and you owe me one!" It yelled in a whiny, high-pitched voice. Its malicious tone told me that whatever it wanted wasn't something I wanted to give.

" _Ahhhhh_!" Io had also apparently woken up. Poor Pixie put her flying skills to work and dodged out of the way when Io followed Daichi's lead and took off like a light. She planted herself firmly behind him, who was behind me, until we looked like a congo line of frightened high schoolers.

"Yeah, that's the spirit! I think I'll kill all of you to break in this new body of mine!" The Obariyon started rolling its shoulders comically while it bared its teeth. I'll be honest. I was scared. A train had almost killed me, and I was going to be killed by a red, deformed chimpanzee. But even in spite of that, some faraway part of my brain convinced the rest of my body to stop shaking and take a combat pose. What I could do against it, I wasn't sure. Whatever it was, though, I was gonna try it.

Before the demon could take a single step, though, Pixie planted herself between me and the demon, arms wide. Daichi and Io took a few steps back and fell onto their behinds simultaneously. I also heard a small, girlish yelp, but I had my doubts it was from Io. I was only shocked. "Pixie?"

"If you think I'm going to let you lay a single claw on Naoki, you're dead wrong! You aren't even worthy to be killed by him!" She defended me with such ferocity that even the Obariyon was shocked. My mind started running again, and I couldn't help but wonder how many times I had seen this sight. This small fairy, standing between me and harm's way, as far as I could remember. I had to stop myself from reaching my hand out to her, reminding myself that I was in a combat situation.

"Hibiki, what...?" I heard Daichi speak up behind me.

"That's how it's gonna be, huh?" The Obariyon looked offended. "Alright then, if you're gonna side with your human buddies there, then it's only fair that I get to summon some friends of my own! Come on guys!" With a snap of his fingers, two more demons inexplicably appeared, and I knew both their names. The Poltergeist and a member of the Jack family: the Pyro Jack. Both were not known for their excessive kindness.

As the three demons approached, and Pixie and I stood to greet them, my mind flashed to the conversation between Daichi and I about jobs. Daichi talked about doing something he liked, or else he couldn't live like that. I finally had something interesting to add to that.

What if to live, I _had_ to do something I liked?

It was a strange thought, to be sure, but as I felt an equally strange smile come to my face, I knew it to be true.

This was what I loved.


	2. Chapter 2

Now, I had been in a few sparring matches in my life.

Nothing too major; I did a brief stint in grappling and had a few brawls with Daichi back when we had pretended to be ninjas, so I wasn't so physically inept to not know the basics of fighting. But that was it - the basics. As any competent-but-amateur fighter could tell you, it took a long time for "muscle memory" to advance to the point where you could attack without spending precious seconds formulating a plan. For me and about a million others, there was no avoiding thinking about it. We just weren't good enough. There was always that slight lag of time between me conceiving an attack and executing it. It wasn't too much time, mind you, but it was more than enough time for an actual fighter to take me apart. Unfortunately, however, that's the sacrifice needed to maintain an effective form and not look like a fool throwing punches.

"Letting go" of your body and kicking ass in this peaceful day and age was all but a myth, and getting caught in a battle haze doesn't make you immune to pain; it makes you get sloppy and liable to get knocked out with a lucky punch. The durability and usability of the average human body is vastly overrated and results in the deaths of numerous stupid people daily. Thus, in my daily life, even if I _were_ as vastly superior as Daichi would have me believe, I played things cautiously. Cautiously and intelligently. So, it was at least mildly surprising to me that my actions here were not at all cautious, and nor were they terribly intelligent. Even more surprising was how I couldn't help myself.

I was moving before the trio of demons could claim another inch. Pixie let out a little yelp as I rushed past her, the shifting air around me sending her into a tailspin. I felt a bit bad about devaluing her speech about protecting me, but it was a far-away sensation eclipsed by what had driven my body forward. A surge of adrenaline rushed through my body, and my legs were restless. I experienced a feeling not dissimilar to having a hammer poised to destroy something fragile. I felt like I could punch through the concrete scattered around me. With those sort of thoughts fueling my advance, there wasn't a chance in hell I could have ever considered the demons in front of me as a threat.

Obariyon apparently hadn't gotten the memo: I was the biggest badass in the subway. He bent slightly on his stout legs, ready to receive my charge. The red demon's mouth opened wide in anticipation, lips split open in a malicious grin. If I had heard him correctly, he had been able to at least divert the crashing train in order to save the three of our lives. Something in my brain recognized it as pure physical strength, so I accepted the whim without another thought. In that case, Obariyon should have been stronger, more durable, and exponentially more confident in his ability to handle me: what he and I believed to be a regular human.

What he probably didn't expect was me sticking my hand straight into his mouth.

Moments before I reached him, I felt a primal pull. Endorphins of satisfaction gushed through me, and my mind put those feelings to memories. Like an addict down off a fading buzz, I wanted to experience that feeling again. A tingling at the back of my neck told me that the time to fulfill my itch was now, but Hibiki Kuze had no idea how to do it. He had never dealt with an Obariyon, and nor had he experienced that sort of sensation before. Thus, Naoki Kashima took control. Memories of a past life flooded my brain, and a moment later, I was primed for action.

The red demon reeled in surprise as I invaded his space recklessly, and he threw his arms back like a helicopter to try and reassert his balance. Before he could fall over, I rooted him in place with a swift grab of his wide, slimy tongue. His blood-red mane now thrown back by gravity, I saw his eyes widen in surprise only for a moment before I put my other hand on his forehead, still clutching his tongue, and pushed. _Squelch_. The long piece of meat came free with a scream and a wet tear, garnering a few horrified gasps behind me.

I didn't turn to look. I threw the useless flesh away as I felt I had always done, but something unfamiliar happened. As soon as it hit the ground, it dissolved in the same flash of blue as it had when the demons appeared. That confirmed it, then.

"It's like with the Terminals," I muttered, not understanding quite what I meant. Even so, I got the gist. They were being summoned. Destroying them returned them into the formless blue mana they appeared from, but where they appeared from was still unknown. Still caught in the throes of thought, I brought my foot down subconsciously, and more of the blue energy floated up around my ears. He wasn't so strong after all. Pixie probably helped with the train.

"Yeah, Naoki! We're back in business!" Pixie whooped behind me, and I instinctively turned to give her a toothy smile. Bad idea, of course, in the middle of a fight. I felt a sharp force impact the back of my head like it was shot from a cannon. The force of it made my mouth go numb and almost made my eyes fly out from their sockets. Dizziness invaded my consciousness and brought me to a stagger, but for what it was worth, I was still standing. I searched the ground for the offending projectile with hazy eyes before spotting a slightly crimson rock the size of a fist at my feet.

"Naoki!"

"Hibiki!"

I heard both voices echo in the tunnel through a tin can, one frantic and one tinged with fury.

"Look out!" the frantic voice cried, before tackling me to the floor. It rattled my head around painfully and almost made me bite my tongue, but it wasn't so bad compared to the rock. Regardless of if the tackle was necessary or not, the caution it conveyed was enough to make me notice the smell of ozone and burning hair around me. I could sense energy building up, and that pleasant, soundless voice informed me once again of the spell's name: _Ziodyne_. I turned around just in time to see it cast. Around fifteen meters away, I saw Pixie dexterously dodge a chunk of concrete thrown by the Poltergeist before blasting him with enough lightning to make the Sun look dark. I wasn't even able to see it disappear - just the black char that remained when it did.

The person next to me, with his arms folded over his head and his torso still over my legs, peeked out from his hands at the carnage around him. "I'm... still alive? Holy crap!" It was Daichi, of course. No one else could have possibly done as bad of a takedown as him.

Io, even closer to the incident, was thankfully unharmed but understandably dumbstruck by the display of power. Her face was frozen in a mix of fear and awe, and nothing seemed to catch her attention except for what had just unfolded in front of her. Which was bad, if the orange glow next to her was anything to go by.

I wouldn't have been able to get to her in time, even if Daichi weren't still hugging me. "Pixie!" I exclaimed. She turned and reacted more quickly than I had expected. She followed my gaze easily to Io, and to the conspicuous Pyro Jack moving on her from the shadows. From there on, I could only admire the speed at which demons could move as she shot over.

Now, apparently, with the small, winged creature of destruction rushing towards her, Io had broken out of her stupor. She was confused for a moment, wondering why the adorable being of death was coming to kill her next when her senses picked up on a distinctive, yet mildly amusing cackling emanating from her right. Her survival instincts kicked in in an instant, sending her scurrying away from the fairies both.

She fled as far as she could in the darkness of the subway, but when she eventually hit a wall in her blindness, Io fearfully turned around and saw Pyro Jack's approaching fire glowing melodramatically. I saw Daichi try to get up to help, but get distracted by a small scrape on his hand for a moment. I rolled my eyes.

Just before Pyro Jack unleashed his flames, the mad cackling reaching its climax, Pixie swooped in from the side and snatched the lantern from his hand. In a single instant, the Jack's malicious smile flipped into a look of despair. The inside of his pumpkin head now looked dark and depressing. "Hey! Give it back!" he cried out desperately.

"No!" Pixie held the lantern away from her body, and even further from Pyro Jack. It was easily bigger than her, but she still held it like it was nothing.

" _Give it baaaaack_!" Pyro Jack flew around weakly, not possessing of Pixie's greater maneuverability. The result was like a tortoise trying to catch a bird, and it was all rather sad.

"What am I watching?" Daichi asked incredulously.

"Only if you surrender!" Pixie called out in a teasing, mock-authoritative tone. "Pledge your allegiance to the Demifiend!" And with that sentence, it clicked. That was certainly a word I knew. It was all coming back rather quickly, now. _I_ was the Demifiend. Funny time to realize it, huh...

Pyro Jack floated back down to the ground and clasped both his floating hands together in prayer. "Okay! I swear! Please just give it back, hee-ho!" He sounded like he was close to tears, so I kind of felt bad for the guy. He was more like a bad kid than anything. Pixie cracked open an eye.

"Pixie..." I led.

"What? I don't think he meant it!"

"No!" the Jack panicked. "I promise I meant it! I swear that I promised! I ree-hee-ally do!"

"Hmm..." Pixie mused innocently. I knew that look. "Okay! But next time you get on my bad side, I'm keeping it!" She tossed the lantern back, which the floating pumpkin caught with a gleeful spin as he erupted into flames once again. Then, he turned to me.

"I'm Pyro Jack! Glad to be of service!" he said with a cheerful salute. Then, before he disappeared, I somehow heard him mutter, "What a mean fairy." What a guy. I heard a faint ringtone on my phone go off once.

After the fight, it seemed like I had burned up all of my bravado, because I must have waited twenty seconds before I moved again. When I did, I had to shove Daichi off of me. Poor guy was still in shock after having been attacked by demons, then having watched the demons do a sitcom act. Of course, I say "attacked", but he was pretty much spotless. Io looked to be getting her bearings well, though.

"So, was that your idea of fairy family fun?" I commented nonchalantly. In a normal situation, I wouldn't have been able to say that. I'm not sure anyone would have been able to act so familiar with someone he just met, but that was the case for me. My head swam with voices and images from a time before Hibiki was alive. Demons, Amala, Fiends, Reason... everything boiled down to one thing for me: Demifiend. That word felt too right. It had always almost been an insult - like a reminder of something I no longer was. Humans had been exterminated, and I had been turned into something more base and vile. Now, it felt like a second skin I never knew I had lost.

For all intents and purposes, I had only just noticed the pounding of my heart.

"Nah, don't worry about it. Jack's tend to get way too excited when they're having fun, so you gotta knock 'em down a few pegs." Pixie brushed me off playfully with a flick of her hand.

"Wasn't very nice, though."

"I _was_ being nice!" she said indignantly. "He was a fellow fairy, after all. I couldn't just blow him up too! Or tear out his tongue." She looked at me pointedly, and I felt disproportionately sheepish.

"What can I say? I needed to get back into gear." I flashed her a smile jokingly.

Daichi put a hand on my shoulder and spoke bitterly. "Okay, first of all, dude, it's those stupid smiles of yours that steal every girl away from me, and second of all, _what the hell is going on?"_

Io looked worried about more than being late for exams this time. _"_ What were those things? There was that red creature and a ghost... Oh! Hibiki, are you okay?" She walked over to inspect my head, a motherly tone in her voice.

"It'll take more than that to put down Naoki!" Pixie said enthusiastically, stopping the sheepish Io in her tracks. Frankly, I was flattered, but I was a little bit confused at how I survived getting bullseye'd by twenty pounds in the back of the head.

"Well, I'm not too surprised that he survived with how hard of a head he's got, but can we talk about how _he ripped out that thing's tongue?"_ Daichi, my best bud: always asking the important questions.

"Those death videos aren't a joke, either..." Io intoned softly.

"Okay! To truly understand the one you call Hibiki, you must first understand his _dark past_..." Pixie started spookily. "It all began in a hospital-" Oh god, that sounded an awful lot like a long story. I sort of wanted to hear it, in this case, but another part of me really didn't want to risk it. Chances are, I knew it, and chances are, it'd be really boring. It was a bad attitude, really; it's been with me since birth.

"Hold that thought," I interrupted, feeling a pebble drop on my nose. Perfect timing, collapsing subway tunnel. Things were getting way too chaotic anyways, and it was hurting my head. "Let's get out of here, first. Give us the short version on the way."

"Oh yeah, sure! So, anyways, it all began in a hospital..."

* * *

"Alright, so do you get it?" Pixie asked cheerfully.

"That was almost entirely incomprehensible, but here's what I got from it: there are demons now, you're a demon, and he was a demon too in another life." Daichi pointed a thumb at me, a blank expression on his face. The sun illuminated all of our faces now that we were outside, but it was a mess.

Cars were overturned and the streets were cracked like the entire worker population of Shibuya had taken sledgehammers to it. I could see smoke rising in the distance and small embers where car fires had recently gone out. At the end of the intersection, I had spotted a large group of people gathering, so we ducked into an alleyway to have our conversation. It took a solid bit to placate them about the attack and dead bodies long enough to tell them the story.

"Yeah, you really did get it!"

"No, because that makes no sense whatsoever!" And Daichi was now frustrated. He wasn't _just_ frustrated, either; I could tell from the scrunch in his forehead. He was around three whole Frustrates out of five on the Daichi scale, and that usually only happens when he has too much homework or when he gets dumped. "I'll accept the demon thing, because we just got attacked by them. That's the least of my issues. Never mind about how they came here or why they're only just showing up now, but rewriting the world? I'm sorry, that's just too out there. You don't believe this, do you Hibiki?" Daichi looked at me incredulously, and the other two followed shortly after. I jolted back a bit in surprise.

"Hey guys, don't be strangers or anything," I joked. Daichi narrowed his eyes. "But, uh, yeah. I do believe it, because I remember it now." Pixie's face lit up as soon as the words left my mouth.

Daichi, however, looked like his jaw had dislocated itself and was about to walk away. "You _what_? Are you serious? You didn't know jack about this thirty minutes ago!"

"Well, yeah," I rubbed my neck sheepishly. This was the part in the conversation where my friends abandoned me and called me crazy if I played this incorrectly. "Apparently alternate universe amnesia recovers pretty quickly." While it was the only thing that came to mind, I still felt like I could have done far better.

Io spoke up, and strange expression on her face. Her eyes focused on the ground as if she were overly shy about the topic, but they had a strange hardness to them that made me notice the gears turning in her head. They did not screech with the sound of a rust, but with the quiet of a well-oiled machine. "Um, I'm sorry, but you said something about him changing the world because of the demons, right?"

"Yep!" Pixie said happily, flying into my shoulder and taking a relaxed seat there. My face heated up, but I felt no urge to remove her.

"Then why are there still demons? If you wanted to redo the world, why is it still like the old one?" Her voice wasn't accusing, but merely inquisitive. Io, as I am wont to say far too often, was far too innocent. And I only say it because it shocks me every time. Even so, it still gave me that restless bite of annoyance.

"This is _nothing_ close to my world. I don't remember much about it past beating the shit out of the entire demon population, but for one, there's no Isamu and Chiaki to ruin everything." I laughed sarcastically, but it came out more bitter than I had intended. Daichi and Io looked taken aback, I felt Pixie's breath hitch slightly, and I became intimately aware of how much of an ass I must have seemed there. I let out a small, awkward cough. "Anyways, that's good. Demons were running amok and no humans were even alive in my world. So, even if this wasn't quite what I wanted, this is a far better situation than I could have hoped for." Kagutsuchi was just a bit mad about me restoring the world after all, I guess.

Salvage the situation, Hibiki. Change the subject. " _Ahem_. So, Pixie, this world is still different from the old one, even if it still has demons. My name is different, I look different, and Daichi probably became a bigger loser than before because he lived longer." An indignant "hey!" was all I needed to know that he wasn't mad at me for flipping out. Played correctly, indeed. It was a bit of a risk, but it seems I still knew Daichi well enough to judge his mood. Io smiled a bit too at his reaction. For that, was glad, because I had completely underestimated one person's ability to poop a party. "How is it that you remembered me, too? And if that's all it takes to jog memories, does that mean there'll be a bunch of people who'll remember they were dead?"

Pixie hummed thoughtfully. "That's more of a demon thing. A bunch of demons remember stuff like that, but you probably can remember it because you were at the center of the change. Like, for example, I remember helping out this mean-looking army guy with a gun, but he was really a big softie..." She prattled on for a bit, and I got lost in thought.

"Well, I'm not a demon anymore, so I guess I can count out remembering because I'm a demon," I murmured. Daichi looked at me worriedly.

"Uh, dude? Sorry to break the news to you, but that's not exactly right." I could barely voice my confusion before Daichi had expertly whipped out his phone and snapped a picture of my face.

"This isn't the time for pictures, Daichi!" The guy did this all the time when I wasn't prepared, and then he sends them to my mom for the sake of increasing some sick anti-Hibiki rapport, the weirdo. Anyways, chances were that a rock to the back of the head messed up your hair something magnificent. I could almost hear the mocking now...

Surprisingly, he handed me the phone without a word and showed me my face mid-protest. Initially, I hadn't noticed anything wrong, but then...

"Holy crap. That isn't normal."

"Yup," he answered neutrally.

In the picture, and in what I presumed to be real life as well, my eyes glowed yellow.

"Wow!" Pixie noticed my eyes as well. "That's neat, Naoki! Very demonic of you!"

"No, not neat. This could end up being way more trouble than it's worth! How many people do you know who have glowing eyes?"

"Probably the same number of people who rip out demon tongues," Daichi snarked. Huh. Maybe demon eyes weren't my biggest concern.

"Alright, I get the point," I conceded. "If I don't show off, we should be safe from lynch mobs trying to burn us. I'm still a little bit demon, but it definitely feels and looks weaker. Otherwise, I'd have a horn growing out of my spine and I'd look like a bad tattoo advertisement. Is that why I was able to survive the rock?" I directed the question to Pixie, because it seemed like she would know quite a bit about this whole situation. Being a demon and all.

That... was a bit racist, actually.

"Well, it looks like you only just regained your powers because of the summoning. You haven't been working out, Naoki! Your powers are like a muscle; you use 'em or you lose 'em! Anyways, that's probably a part of it, but it looks like whatever you summoned demons with is also keeping you guys from getting hurt too bad by them. Fluffy would probably get some brain damage if it happened to him." Fluffy?

"Fluffy?" Daichi asked, pointing to himself.

I looked at his hair and nodded. "Fluffy."

"You're fluffier than I am, pal!" Daichi pointed to my hair, which was, in fact, boastfully fluffier than his. "Maybe you should be Fluffy! O-Or the Fluffmaster!" Daichi, I like you, man, but in what universe is that okay to say in front of a girl you like?

"But your personality fits better! You guys can call him whatever silly name you want, but he'll always be Naoki to me! Or Nao-cakes, or Nao-kun!" Please don't.

"Yeah, I think I will stick to Hibiki. Naoki's just too weird. How about you, Io?"

Io jumped in shock as she was suddenly thrust into the conversation. With any luck for my poor best friend, the surprise was because she wasn't listening, and would never have to know about his lingual shortcomings.

"W-what? Me? I-I don't even know you that well and-!"

"Come on, Io!" Pixie pressed. "We're all in the same boat now! Pick a name - any name!" The same boat, huh? I guess so.

"Um... well, ok..." She looked at me as if asking for my permission to continue, and I smiled lightly. "I guess... Naoki's kind of growing on me?"

Pixie cheered and Daichi swore. "Damn, that's two for the Naoki club."

"I'll still call him Hibiki, though!" Io said in a panicked tone. "It might get confusing anyways."

"Don't worry, Daichi. I'll still introduce myself as Hibiki. I wouldn't want anybody to hear 'Naoki' and think you have more than one friend."

"Ice cold, man," he said, his voice now relaxed and careless. "Anyways, we got off-topic. I'm still not sure about all of the alternate world and memories and stuff, but I don't really care anymore. After the demon attack I can't bring myself to. But I do know that this whole thing is messed up, we're caught in the middle of it, and you're the only one who knows what's going on. And seeing as how you can still fling burns like that, I don't have to worry about you changing on me, so for the time being, I'll believe you."

"I believe you too," Io spoke up. "I only survived that because you three were there, and I don't think people who would do that would lie about this." That was... admirable. Adorably naive, and unquestionably admirable.

"Oh, it was nothing, Io," Daichi answered smoothly. "You're one of us now, and we would do anything for our own." He leaned over to put his hand on the wall, but I slapped it down, causing him to lose balance and fall into it. He glared at me.

"There was some kind of gathering going on up the street. Maybe we should check it out," I suggested innocently. This was nice. A second ago, we were a hair's length away from going into a panic. Now, we were joking around like it was a regular Summer vacation. Were we with anyone else, I suppose I could have expected Harlem to break out, but things were different here.

Daichi, though he was cowardly at the worst of times and aggravatingly simple at the best, never had a history of letting things get to him. The demon stuff was tough to get a grip on, and all the destruction was debilitating to see, but he soldiered on still. Even without me here, he surely would have adapted well enough on his own.

Io, as well, was stunningly clear-headed given the circumstances. I could really see why Daichi and half the school looked up to her. While she wasn't an overemotional girl, she also didn't go out of her way to hide her emotions and ideas. It ended up making me feel a little inadequate, to be honest. In my opinion, if you weren't keeping people guessing in conversations, your presence would die. If everybody always constantly knew what I was thinking, there wouldn't be a need for me to say anything. It was a dazzling endorsement for Io, then, that she was this popular while wearing her heart on her sleeve.

There wasn't much to be said about Pixie and I. She was a demon, and after everything that had just been dumped on me, I already knew it all. None of the demons or anything surprised me, so I suppose I wouldn't be panicking. Were I not some past-life super-demon, though? Who knows? I might have gone insane from the stress and tried to wear Daichi's skin as a coat. I didn't feel altogether very different, though, even keeping the world modification in mind. Like I said, Naoki Kashima's life just felt like another part of my life that I had never experienced. It was a part of me. That must have been why I didn't mind either name.

Daichi grumbled something resembling an affirmative to my suggestion while Io and Pixie nodded. When we started walking, Pixie loop-de-looped into my hoodie pocket and snuggled up where the fabric was seamed together. Luckily for me and my hoodie, the weather had cooled down as the day had progressed. Curious, I checked my phone, and the display read "17:46".

"Hey, Daichi. No signal." A quick check of his phone confirmed the same thing.

"The land-lines aren't working either," Io observed, and I followed her eyes to the sight of two people leaving a phone booth in exasperation. They rejoined the mass of people standing expectantly in front of a large screen, so we did the same. The soft murmur of the crowd almost didn't match the destruction around us. It was almost as if they _hadn't_ just seen people and their livelihoods destroyed by demons. I knew better, though. It was a poignant quiet that implied worse than it said. They were quiet because this was how they dealt with things beyond them. The ones who had panicked were already dead.

The mood in the intersection was infectious, even after our good mood upon exiting the subway. A moment ago, we had left on a crusade against the evil demons, filled with swashbuckling fun and mutual bonding, but now, it felt like the world had never been reset. People displaced and with their lives ruined. The infrastructure of the block looked like it was on the brink of collapse. I felt despair, and it was morbidly nostalgic.

After another minute or so, the display came alive with the image of a middle-aged, salt-and-pepper newscaster. "We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for this important news bulletin: At around 16:00 today, a large-scale calamity, reportedly a vertical shock quake, occurred. There are no details yet, but massive casualties have been reported around the city. Again, at 16:00-" The display cut off abruptly, going black with a small hum. The voice of the people around me begin to get restless.

I looked to Daichi, almost expecting him to be the same way, but his steadiness surprised me still. It was almost difficult to see him as the same Daichi who needed me to help him burn the sheets he wetted in his sleep. At age thirteen. I guess having Pixie explain things to him did help.

"Was it a quake, though?" Daichi murmured. I knew what he meant. Demons did this. I wasn't sure how, but something had done this. This was an enormous level of destruction even with demons in mind, though.

"Hey, Io? Does your phone work?" I knew it didn't, but really, it was worth a try.

"No... I'm sorry." She apologized way too much. "I need to call my parents, too..."

"Damn, me too." Daichi was finally starting to sound like himself again with the tiny quiver in his voice. He opened his phone and tried to look for an Internet connection to no avail. Suddenly, he spoke up. "Wait a sec, take a look at this, Hibiki. A 'Demon Summoning App'."

"I have it too," Io interjected, and just for posterity's sake, I found that I had it too. "I don't have any demons, though." A quick check-through informed me that I had Pyro Jack and Pixie as my demons.

"Me neither."

"I do, and something's really weird about it," I said, turning my phone for Daichi to see.

"It's cool, isn't it? Like a game!" Pixie's muffled voice came from my pocket, and I covered it in panic. Looks like no one had noticed the voice, but a few people did notice me grab my crotch like a weirdo. I waved the others away from the crowd so we could hear what Pixie had to say. Luckily for us, downtown Shibuya was a den of shady alleys.

"Jeez! Don't do that when there's a bunch of people around! Everyone finds out I have a demon in my pocket, and suddenly a bunch of people want revenge for demons destroying everything," I admonished. "Although, it was good that Pixie spoke up, because it brings up something we need to cover. We need to be a lot more careful about what we say around other people. So that means no talk of demons around people we don't know. And that means no blabbering about the Demifiend, Pixie." Daichi and Io nodded in agreement.

"Don't worry about it! You can just kill the eavesdroppers if they get fussy!" No, Pixie, I couldn't _just_ do that. "Anyways, this Nicaea thing can apparently quantify statistics of different demons! Plus, it's a real handy interface! Much better than blood tomes and runes to control your demon, huh?"

"It's a little dumb." Dumb and a little cheap, but it only boiled down to one conclusion: Nicaea was a filter. Too many things lined up perfectly. Nicaea, even with its dangerous nature, wasn't intended to kill. Maybe other people, but not its user. As far as apocalyptic devices went, it was pretty forgiving.

Needless to say, I was at least a little familiar with apocalypses, and this was no Conception. That was used with the intention of completely eradicating a human presence on Earth. If demons were unleashed without the protection Nicaea offered, humans would've been slaughtered in much the same way, if not a tad slower. As it was, however, it was clear Nicaea was created with the intention of subjugating demons. The interface and injury mitigation prove that easily enough. The question then becomes simple:

 _Why?_

"Well, of course it's dumb for you, Naoki. You can tell all that stuff instinctively; you're half-demon." Come on. From what I could tell, I only had the eyes. "I'm sure the normal humans appreciate the handiness of it!"

"Well, I would, but I don't have any demons to appreciate."

"Actually, there's a reason for that!" Pixie said cheerily. "Naoki already had a demon, and that was me! So since the initial auto-contract function was fulfilled, the only demons we get are volunteers and ones we pay for! The others have to be satisfied with a brutal death."

"So Hibiki and Pixie hog all the kills, and I get shafted with no demon? This sucks."

"Don't whine, Daichi. It's unbecoming."

"Um, where is the other demon, anyways?" Io asked.

"Probably stored in the phone somewhere," Pixie dismissed. "He's not a fun guy to have around, anyways. He's the kind of guy who tries way too hard to fit in. You wouldn't like him." Wow. That was so harsh I could barely believe Pixie said it.

"Look, I don't want to pry into family affairs, but-" I started, before a distinct, female voice cut me off.

"Excuse me, but can you three turn and face me for a moment?" Oh shit. My "fuzz" detectors were going off, and we were the kids smoking behind the school. Swiftly, I grabbed Pixie and shoved her in my hoodie like a used cigarette in a water bottle.

I turned around to see a tall, blue haired woman staring at me intensely from no more than two feet away. With a few inches on me and a professional, black uniform staring me in the face, you could be damn sure I backed up a step. I had to think fast.

"Oh god, a pervert!" A true classic tactic that Daichi and I had devised to throw adults off our trail. Whenever we were doing something we shouldn't, the pervert accusation was usually enough to confuse them long enough to make ourselves scarce. As soon as I saw her face morph to defend herself, I readied myself to go.

"Wait, Hibiki! She doesn't look like a pervert." I jinxed it. And right after I _just said_ we had to keep this stuff secret. I knew Io's naïveté would come back to bite us, but I didn't think it would be this soon. I looked to Daichi and shot him a look that pleaded him to go without me. Leave Io, because she had ratted us out. But the poor, lovestruck fool didn't listen, and now, we were like rats in a cage.

"Thank you, miss." The tall woman recovered her composure. "But I heard you say something about a demon? Can you tell me more about that?" _Dear Lord_ _they knew._

Nothing good could come from this. She looked too much like a government agent to be asking innocent questions, and for all I knew, the government was distributing the demons for some sick and twisted experiment. Likely? Not really. Possible? Most definitely. So as someone who was not an ally and was potentially an enemy, we had only one possible recourse: a technique passed through the Kuze line for generations!

"Holy fucking shit! Is someone hurt over there?" Second time's the charm. Step one: swear a ton with some hard consonants to get their attention. Step two: say 'hurt' to imply that I'm not medically savvy, and that I'm too genuinely frightened to use a sophisticated vocabulary. Step three: act.

Like the gullible agent of peace she seemed to be, the tall woman turned in surprise to check for the imaginary casualties. In the few seconds while she did so, I grabbed both Io and Daichi by the hands and dragged them along the path to freedom. By the time the woman noticed we were gone, we had already rounded a corner and were lost in a maze of alleys.

* * *

A/N:

lol DeSu2 amnesia


End file.
